


The Wandless Witch

by BluCheeto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Ben and Poe are best frenemies, F/M, Fluff, Gryffindors are not moral gods, Hux is just a bitch, Jannah sometimes wishes she were a muggle, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Phas is a bitch but like a stylish and relatable bitch, Ravenclaws break rules, Slytherins are not evil snobs, and Hufflepuffs have teeth, fact: Paige Tico would've traveled in Fred and George's pack, more like a cohesive series of one-shots, relatively plotless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:20:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluCheeto/pseuds/BluCheeto
Summary: HP AU in which Rey is a scrappy new kid, Finn has so many Neville parallels it's no wonder he's the author's fave, Rose is also spoiled rotten by author, Quidditch captain Poe lives to break stereotypes, and Edgelord Ben is dabbling in the dark arts because he just would, wouldn't he.
Relationships: Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Kylo Ren/Rey, Poe Dameron & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

_It’s the first time any of the students have heard the sorting hat call only a first name and no last._  
  
 _Ben watches her climb the steps toward the stool. Every candle hovering above flickers. A chilling breeze sweeps across the floor before it whips up, blowing the candles out. The hall erupts in gasps and whispers._  
  
The wandless witch. 

_Despite the dramatic atmosphere, all he can think about is how small and scrawny she is._  
  
She can’t possibly be eleven, _he thinks._

 _She sits on the stool, eyes skittering nervously across the hall until settling on the grand entrance doors. Ben and a few others surreptitiously follow her gaze to the back, where Chewbacca and Han Solo are standing._ _Ben remembers the day he'd b_ _een sorted; when his eyes had cast about the great hall with the same desperate anxiety, seeking the same assuring smirk Han's donning now. He remembers how he'd smiled the same tiny smile as the girl is when he'd seen Chewie waving at him._ _  
  
She looks determined when t_ _he hat bellows,_  
  
“SLYTHERIN!”  
  
  
  
  
  
Four days later:  
  
  
  
  
  
Two figures follow their professor up a small spiral stairwell to the headmaster’s office.  
  
“Stop walking so close," the boy mutters irritably. His Slytherin robe sleeve doesn’t swish, being rolled halfway up his forearms in an obvious dress code violation, as he moves further from the tan, freckled girl beside him. His raven hair and ember eyes catch the lamplight as they ascend the dark stairwell. 

_“I can’t see,"_ she hisses back. From what little light there is, the boy glimpses messy chestnut buns bouncing at the back of her head, her fiery hazel glare glued to the steps.  
  
“Eyes up, little one,” the professor advises from ahead. “Almost there.” The Slytherin pair round the final corner to find their defense against the dark arts professor at the top, wand elegantly raised in lumos to light the last few steps leading up to a great oak door. “Step inside and wait _qu_ _ietly_. I’ll see you both in detention tomorrow.” The girl nods anxiously. Professor Ashoka Tano, clearly already soft on her, pats her shoulder empathetically before leaving them. 

The boy sniffs and shuffles inside, shadowed by his tiny companion. He twitches at the sound of the door latching behind them; the office feels as stale and silent as it always has. He wishes it didn’t smell so familiar.

“...The headmaster won’t expel us, right?” The girl whispers, eyes roaming the ornate space. 

He takes a seat in the chair closest to the door. "No." The boy levels a glare at the massive desk in the center of the room. “Tano expects us in detention tomorrow.” 

His cold appeasement falls on deaf ears as the girl gazes up at the animated portraits above them. The last headmaster, the late Obi-Wan, winks at her amidst brushstrokes of off whites and browns. The boy rolls his eyes and slouches further into the chair. 

A sharp, smoky voice pierces the silence. “There you are." Her grey crown of ornate braids is their first glimpse of the headmaster as she fully emerges into the candlelight. Leia Organa smiles with a fond gleam in her eyes. "Hello, Rey. Ben."  
  
He rises, tense with defiance even as he unrolls his robe sleeves. Climbing the few steps at the center of the office brings him directly in front of the desk behind which Headmaster Organa is standing.   
  
The small first-year shakes out her hands, curling them into shaky fists, and follows. 

Organa takes her seat with a sigh before resting her glittering gaze on the girl. “I understand you are the newly adopted ward of our residing defense professor and head of Slytherin house, Professor Ashoka Tano. Is that right, Rey?”

Hands still shaking, Rey answers, “Yes, ma’am.”

“And that you, Ben, are here-” she pauses to raise a parchment closer to her eyes, “because you were caught chasing a classmate's cat around the grounds...when you were supposed to be in Charms class.” Her voice carries no question, and a clear amount of amusement.  
  
Ben lifts his chin and frowns, making no effort at direct eye-contact, finding a floating candle just over the headmaster’s shoulder to glare at. 

Organa nods to herself, shuffling her few sheets of parchment. “And Rey, is it true you were enrolled a year too early at our sister-school, Ilvermorny?” Rey remains quiet and stiff. Ben glances curiously down at her. Organa brings another article of parchment closer to her face as she reads. “According to Professor Tano’s report, you somehow managed to transfigure a muggle electric bill into a Hogwarts letter, then proceeded to sneak into MACUSA, apparate into the Ministry, and hotwire a charmed muggle car, in which our flying instructor, Han Solo, found you. All of which was done...without a wand.” There’s a brief, agonizing pause in which the headmaster drops her hand holding the report to the desk with a shocked ‘thump’. “Crafty little nine year old, aren’t you?” 

Rey drops her head. Ben is staring at her with earnest disbelief, now. 

This seems to further amuse the Headmaster. “Rey.” The girl lifts only her eyes. “I’m sure you are aware by now that we do not tend to accept students until they are _eleven_.”  
  
The nine-year-old seems, impossibly, to shrink further.  
  
“That said..." Leia takes a deep breath in, "Hogwarts upholds that rule largely for safety and experience reasons, and you…” Organa pauses. “Well- you're a bit of a special case. You’ve proved you’ll find your way here no matter the cost--specifically to yourself, it seems. After an extensive meeting with the staff, we’ve decided the safest option is to leave you officially enrolled."  
  
Rey straightens with shock, eyes wide as a doe's.  
  
“Besides,” Organa adds with a smile. “Seems you’ve already made yourself a friend.”

The tense grip on Ben’s body vanishes completely as he rolls his eyes. Organa merely nods at Rey, whose eyes are equally disbelieving.  
  
“No, I- he was blocking-”  
  
“She just so happened to be passing as I was looking for-”

“-my way to Potions-”

“-Poe’s damned cat-”

“And he interrogated me about Beebee-”  
  
“-it stole something-”

“We just-"

“We don't-”

“...” 

“...”

Leia is smirking. Ben and Rey stand staring at her, mouths agape, fingers pointing limply at each other.

“Yes, I think you two will grow quite close.” It’s a soft, satisfied declaration; her eyes sparkling, smile plump and smug. 

Ben grunts, turning to leave without permission. 

“You’re dismissed,” Organa offers the still-stiff Rey, not without gentility.

The young pair think they hear a soft, “see you soon,” but can’t be sure over the creak of the office door.  
  


  
  
Earlier that day: 

  
  
“The girl I’ve heard so much about.”  
  
Rey had taught herself not to respond when strangers are rude to her. And she finds it _especially_ rude to block someone’s path when they’re half your size and already late for class.  
  
“Rey NoName.” He looks older, maybe a fourth year like Poe. But he’s bigger than Poe. And his voice is deeper. “The wandless witch.”  
  
She mashes her teeth together to keep the _‘piss off’_ from toppling off the tip of her tongue. She didn't know being wandless would be such a big deal. The spotlight is uncomfortable, unwelcome, and cumbersome. She won’t risk a brighter spotlight for missing Potions. Especially since it's the only class she has with Finn today.  
  
She glares up at him. "Move.”  
  
“The map," he says simply. "Give it to me.”  
  
 _Map?_ The orange tabby had had only a folded up bundle of blank, aged parchment. She continues to glare.   
  
“It's mine," he insists.  
  
“Then what was it doing in Poe’s cat’s mouth?” 

“Dameron and I share a dorm. Beebee gets into things he shouldn’t.”  
  
For some reason, hearing the cat’s name, ‘Beebee’, come out in the boy’s low, brooding tone makes him suddenly much, much less intimidating. “I gave it to Poe,” she says. The boy seems to relax. “Are you friends?” She asks.  
  
He watches her for a beat. “Seem unlikely?”  
  
Rey hadn’t considered how likely or unlikely it seems, only that if Poe likes this boy, Rey might be more inclined to. She shrugs. 

“You’re a first year in our house,” he says, eyeing the moth hole near the seam of her Slytherin patch.  
  
She glares, defensive. “Let me pass. I’m late and I don’t have what you’re looking for.”  
  
“Tell me where the cat is.” 

“I don’t know where the cat is.”

"I just saw you petting-"

"Then you know I didn't do anything with the cat!" Rey tries to shove past him, which makes the boy huff a little laugh.  
  
"Hold on-"  
  
"Let. Me. _Pass!_ "  
  
Before either of them are prepared, all of the air in the hall shrinks and expands within the exhalation of her final word. The boy is abruptly in the air, _flying_ backward.   
  
Just as his body hits the stone floor, Professor Tano rounds the corner.   
  
Her wide eyes skitter from the boy, to Rey, and back again. There's a moment of silence in which Rey cannot hear her heartbeat. "What's happened here, Solo?"   
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Poe and Rey fall into a natural friendship. Ben knows it’s mostly down to Quidditch; Rey’s the best keeper the Slytherin team’s seen in decades, and the team is Poe’s _life_. It isn’t surprising that they’d bond over something as base as camaraderie. 

What _is_ surprising is how fast Dameron's slid into Big Brother Mode. 

Ben’d been relaxing in the Slytherin common room, trying to nap, when he hears someone running down the chamber stairs. He turns in time to watch Rey’s buns and swirling robe disappear up the girls’ room stairwell. 

“Rey!” Dameron clambers down the common room stairs next, calling after her. “Rey, just stop for a sec-!” 

Ben turns on the couch to look back at Poe, alarmed. “What happened?”

“He’s a fucking _dementor_ , I swear to Merlin-” Dameron starts, spitting mad and pacing in front of the fireplace. “If Hux keeps picking on her I’m gonna slam his face into the nearest stone column-” The threat of bodily violence against the cancerous redhead holds little shock value. Not in this house. Not after a four-year rivalry between the three of them. “-picking on her fucking uniform violation- a _hole_ in her skirt!? Her _only_ skirt! The one she had to take out of lost and found! Fucking _really!?_ It's always a _class_ thing with that jackass!”   
  
“Did he get her in trouble for it?”  
  
“Of course he did!” Poe erupts. “I had to track down Tano just so we could pull her out of Ackbar’s office. That shithead was lobbying to get her in trouble for a _moth hole_ in her skirt-“ _  
__  
_“Did it work?” Ben’s voice is dark, intense.  
  
“No, Ackbar knew that shit was a waste of time," Poe says, unwinding just the slightest. "But still- after- fucking Tano had to pull Rey into her office. The whole thing really scared Rey. That kid fears suspension more than she fears a hundred-mile-an-hour quaffle headed for her head, you know?”   
  
Ben’s eye twitches. He knows. “...Hux is dead.”  
  
Their eyes meet in perfect sync, reflecting the menacing green strobe of the Slytherin's common room flame. Poe nods. “Hux is so fucking dead.”

  
  
  
  
  
Luckily, Armitage Hux is the easiest target in Hogwarts now that Phasma’s Gryffindor Head Girl and doesn’t have time to play bodyguard for her pathetic childhood friend. 

He’s alone and defenseless when they catch him in the third floor boy’s lavatory.

Ben deftly casts _"Petrificus Totalis,”_ as he and Poe flank him from behind. Their eyes lock on the petrified ginger in the mirror’s reflection.   
  
“Here’s what we’re gonna do, Hugs,” Poe starts. “We’re gonna start with your title as Prefect since I think we all know those numbers never added up. _‘Suffragium Fixi’_ , wasn’t it?” Poe snakes his arm across Hux’s shoulder, nodding as if in deep thought. “Yeah, yeah I’m pretty sure that was the hex I heard the night of the tally. Wasn’t it, Solo?”   
  
“Mmhm.”   
  
“A dark hex, if I’m not mistaken.”   
  
“An immediate suspension,” Ben adds.   
  
Poe’s looking at Ben, whose eyes remain mercilessly trained on Hux. Ben hears his friend hum. “An immediate suspension,” he repeats, as if in awe. The weasel’s eyes widen. “If that doesn’t work I guess we’ll just have to target those grades of yours. Maybe play with a few test fixing hexes, ourselves? Lose you a few references? Make a few…” Poe raises his eyebrows at Ben. “Accusations?”   
  
Ben would rather hex _himself_ than willingly turn to his mother for anything. But it’s mostly a bluff anyway, so Ben plays along, nodding.   
  
“Or-” Poe tightens his grip on Hux’s shoulder, drops his voice. “You can leave Rey—and all the other little first-years you deem ‘easy prey’—the _fuck_. _Alone_.”   
  
Hux barely manages a panicked mumble of assent.   
  
“Pretty sweet deal, we know,” Poe says, voice light again. “And we _will_ know if you don’t uphold your end of the bargon. Won’t we, Solo?”   
  
“Immediately.”   
  
“'Cause we've got a certain map.”   
  
“Makes it easy to track certain people.”   
  
“Easy to _corner_ certain people,” Poe finishes. “Capiche?”   
  
All they get is a panicked, muffled “MMHM.”   
  
Poe slaps him on his back, “Good talk, Hugs. Kiss Skywalker’s ass for us, will you?”   
  
Ben lets his friend exit before tipping the red beanpole just enough to topple and thud like a sad sack. He leans over the petrified bully just enough to make himself perfectly visible: “So much as think of messing with her again, I will ruin your fucking life _,_ Armitage.”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ......So maybe Poe isn't the only one feeling protective of little first year Rey? 
> 
> Heh. I live for this shit, sue me.


	3. Chapter 3

Ben doesn’t want to go to Potions. What’s the fuckin’ point? He’s bad at it. It’s boring.   
  
Luckily, Dameron‘s bad at it, too. So naturally, they ditch.   
  
The Slytherin common room is warmer than it looks. Coziest place in the castle, if you ask Ben.   
  
Poe’s retrieved a few snacks from his Hogsmeade stash and shares a few with Ben as they each find a chair to lounge in. Dameron settles sideways in his and pulls out his Quidditch notes—a tiny, charmed parchment he always carries in his shirt pocket. He’s constantly adding strategies, erasing failed plays, picking apart the moving pieces in moving, magicked ink. Sometimes, when he’s bored or tired of studying, Ben finds himself peeking over Dameron’s shoulder at the notes, mildly fascinated by the intricate magic behind his friend's charmed chicken-scratch.   
  
He’s just melting into a peaceful mid-morning nap on the couch next to Dameron when Bazine saunters down from the ladies’ wing.   
  
Ben pretends to be asleep.   
  
Bazine is a fifth-year, too, but acts more like a first. Everyone in the school knows how flirty she is. And not in a cute, quirky way. Her ‘methods’ are far closer to a stalker’s than an admirer. And unfortunately, for some Merlin-Forsaken reason, Ben is her target this year. (Poe likes to claim it's because he's finally hit "the right side of puberty" and is officially the tallest Slytherin boy, but Ben doesn't see how those things cancel out his massive ears and giant Solo Nose.)   
  
“Hello, boys,” she greets.   
  
Poe, the stupid fucker, replies with his typically friendly, “hey, ‘Zeen, what’s up?”   
  
“Free period,” she replies. Ben can _feel_ her leaning over him from behind the couch. “‘Solo asleep?”  
  
Ben can’t hear any movement from Dameron--his eyes likely never leaving his quidditch notes--when he says, “Probably. He naps like a geriatric cat.”   
  
_At least I don’t snore like a screaming mandrake._ _  
_  
Bazine hums. “That’s cute.”  
  
Ben wants to cringe and tell her, emphatically, _‘it’s not cute. It’s the least cute. The most unattractive thing about me. I’ll sleep on dates, I’ll sleep through dinner. You’ll never get a wedding vow out of me so long as I’m asleep through the ceremony.’_   
  
Dameron scoffs. “Sure.”

Aside from her flirty reputation, Bazine Netal is equally notorious for holding a grudge. She’s held one against Dameron since their third year, during which he’d established a reputation for pranks.   
  
The year during which he’d hidden dung bombs in the Slytherin girls’ dorm upstairs.   
  
Thereby ruining a particularly expensive dress of Bazine’s. Saved for a particularly uppity ball.   
  
Ben cracks an eye open just in time to watch her flick Dameron’s ear as she passes to leave the common room. “Shut up, Poe. I’ll hex you into another dimension.”   
  
He mutters, “Accio fucks-to-give” before lazily tossing his quill at her retreating figure. It misses her by a mile. Dameron sits up just enough to turn and glare over at Ben. “She gives me the heeble jeebles.”   
  
“ _Cold soup_ gives you the heeble jeebles,” Ben snarks, closing his eyes again. "But ditto."   
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little time jump here!  
> Again: non-linear storytelling here, hope it's not too confusing or annoying lol

Rey isn’t sure she likes Valentine’s Day.  
  
Ben isn’t really helping her figure it out.  
  
He’s lying on his back along the bench opposite her in the Great Hall, his Advanced Charms homework leviosa’d above his head so he can study without “tiring his arms.” Rey can’t even see him--just the floating notes.  
  
“Valentine’s Day is just an excuse for desperate, fighting lovers to make up with shallow purchases and hollow promises in order to save face in front of their nosy friends.”  
  
Rey rolls her chin on her crossed arms atop the table between them, staring blankly at the floating parchment. “Maybe,” she sighs.  
  
A trio of Ravenclaw girls walk slowly past Ben, giggling as they sneak him a passing look. Chin still lolling on her arms, Rey’s lazy gaze follows them out of the great hall. She wonders idly if Ben's noticed how often it happens, lately; girls giggling and blushing around him. She wonders if he'd like the attention if he did notice it, the way Poe does, or if he'd prefer the attention from a specific girl, the way Finn only prefers Rose. Still, Rey feels a small tide of pride at being friends with such a fawned-over sixth-year boy. This year more than last, girls haven't made their jealousy much of a secret; Rey's close friendship with Ben Solo and Poe Dameron--ostensibly the cutest boys in Slytherin if not the cutest at Hogwarts--has painted a target on her back amongst some of the older girls. (But Rey’s lucky enough to have Rose and Paige and Jannah and Tallie, so it doesn’t bother her much.)  
  
She lolls her head back and returns to staring at his charms homework.   
  
"Have you ever had a valentine before, Ben?"   
  
"Not really," he says, "Bazine's poisoned chocolates from last year don't count."  
  
"That was so creepy...." Rey murmurs.   
  
"Borderline illegal," Ben adds.  
  
"But didn't you go out with Paige once, back in your fourth year?"  
  
"No. That was a friend thing." He sounds eerily defensive. It stokes Rey's interest.  
  
"I thought I remember you two coming back from Hogsmeade-"

"What's with the sudden interrogation?"  
  
"I'm not _interrogating_ -"  
  
"Have you not received any valentines?"   
  
She still can't see his face, so the question floats in the air between them like a heavy balloon waiting to be popped.   
  
Rey tucks her chin, resting her forehead on her crossed forearms, now.   
  
"...Rey?"   
  
"No."   
  
She can hear Ben sitting up, which she didn't actually want. She shouldn't have paused. She shouldn't have muffled the admission into the table like a deep secret. It isn't one. It isn't even a big deal-  
  
"Why not?"   
  
The simple question erupts out of Ben as if he's been personally slighted. It's barb is so sharp it makes Rey look up.   
  
He looks angry. "What do you mean, 'why not'?"  
  
"I mean why _the fuck_ has nobody given _you_ a valentine?"  
  
She lifts her chin just slightly to stare at him. "I don't really mind. I'm- I still have time..."  
  
"Dameron never gave you any chocolate?" Rey considers for a moment before shaking her head. "That Finn kid?" Shake. "...Rose? Tano? Not even from Han or Leia or Chew?"  
  
Rey's gone back to resting her chin on her arms, amused now. She smiles and laughs. "No."  
  
Ben looks legitimately angry on her behalf, and Rey feels...warm. It's nice that he cares this much. "Fuckers," he mutters.  
  
She laughs again before a comfortable silence rests between them for a while, in which Rey closes her eyes and soaks in the last few rays of sunlight streaming through the high windows of the Great Hall. She's always felt settled by the sounds of mid-evening activity here; the relaxing murmur of a few other voices, rustling of parchment, an occasional clink or scrape or plop of dishware. 

But as Ben starts grumbling to himself about Valentine's day and how "fucking dumb" and "useless" and "fake" it is, Rey scrunches her face and decides to defend the holiday simply for the sake of her friends who do celebrate it.  
  
“Know what, though? Rose hasn’t bought anything for Finn,” she argues. “No chocolates or anything. She was up all night writing him a letter, instead. I don’t think that’s desperate. I think it’s-”  
  
“Sad.”  
  
“-sweet.” 

" _Sad_ _,”_ he repeats.  
  
She raises her head to give him a more proper telling-off. “Is _not._ Finn and Rose really care about each other. Finn says the holiday is a chance to _celebrate_ love.”  
  
"And he can't _'celebrate his love'_ for his best fuckin' friend? Sounds fake to me."  
  
...Okay, she _had_ appreciated his anger on her behalf, but Finn doesn't deserve that. "We celebrate our friendship every day-"  
  
"By letting him copy your potions notes? Him using you to get flying lessons with Poe?"  
  
"Stop it," she demands childishly. "Finn can't see the Potions board, and Poe _offered_." He's working his jaw the way he only does when he's really pissed off. Rey can't fully understand why he's _this_ pissed off. "Did Finn do something to you or something?" She asks, suspicious.  
  
"What?" That seems to genuinely surprise him, which only confuses Rey further. "No."  
  
"Then don't go after him on my behalf. He's a great friend. Just because I don't see Poe sending _you_ chocolates doesn't mean I think _he's_ a bad friend."   
  
"Dameron, too-" he bites. "He should've- I don't get it."  
  
 _No,_ I _don't get it._ Rey honestly _cannot_ understand his ire. "I'll just let you to calm down-"  
  
She stands, just about to leave him to stew, when he reaches across the table for her arm.  
  
She meets his eyes with fire in hers.  
  
“Rey.”  
  
Her eyebrows lift, expectantly.  
  
He takes a dramatic breath, lets go of her arm to hide his behind his back. Rey is nonplussed until he takes his arm back from behind him and-  
  
Offers her a glowing flower. A pretty light blue bloom with hints of pink and purple.  
  
She looks back and forth between it and Ben several times, whiplash licking at her temples. "Wh- is it-?"  
  
He rolls his eyes. “For you? No, it’s for Nearly Headless Nick.” There’s the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth.  
  
Slowly, eyes all over his face, Rey lets her smile stretch and stretch. She takes the bloom, lifting it to her nose.  
  
“It’s a gardenia," Ben says. _Finally_ , he smiles, just a bit. Crooked and endearing, it wipes away his pinched fury from moments ago. Rey's always liked when his voice gets softer, the way it is now. His low cadence relaxing to listen to. “They’re supposedly stronger and more stubborn than your typical garden rose.”  
  
Rey drops the flower just slightly to cock her head with exasperation, still smiling. “Are you calling me stubborn?”  
  
“I called you strong, too, if you’d open your ears better.”  
  
Rey laughs. She lifts the charmed flower to her nose again.  
  
 _This_ \- is this what it's like to get a valentine? This pure happiness? She feels her cheeks heat, realizing it’s not only her first valentine, but her first ever flower from a boy. From _anyone_.  
  
“You said you’ve been apparating all summer?”  
  
Ben looks entirely thrown by the question. “What-”  
  
“Answer,” she insists. Affectionately.  
  
“I did, but what’s that got to do-”  
  
“Can you apparate over here so I don’t have to climb over the table to hug you?”  
  
Ben’s confusion morphs into Rey’s favorite Ben Smile: the slow one with teeth. “Absolutely not. That’s a waste,” he teases. 

She groans, sets the flower gently on the table and vaults across it to land beside Ben. He laughs. The few other students in the hall spare a curious glance at the sound of his laughter, and the loud shifting of the wood bench on the stone floor as she deftly plops herself beside Ben to hug him.  
  
Rey will never ever admit to how much she loves the feeling of hugging Ben Solo. She will die before she confesses how much she loves being surrounded by him. And she'll take it to her grave, knowing she's the only one he ever actually hugs. (Poe was drunk. It was a secret he was probably sworn to take to _his_ grave. Rey will protect it in his place.)  
  
“Thank you, Ben.”  
  
He squeezes her. "You're precious, Rey. You don't need chocolates or a flower or a dumb boy to tell you that, but it still pisses me off that you didn't get those things anyway, because you deserve it more than anyone."  
  
Rey doesn't cry often. A rogue quaffle broke her arm several months back and she didn't cry when her _bones_ were being _regrown_. But she tears up at the emotion in Ben's voice. She should've known: he's never so angry as he is when it's on someone else's behalf.   
  
As she squeezes him back, her breathy confession is a perfect squeaky foil to his low, broken admission: "You're precious to me, too, Ben."   
  
When they finally pull apart, he clears his throat and shoves her lightly. “Just put that thing somewhere safe. I charmed the bloom to last a few months--can’t help you if you step on it or something.”  
  
Rey picks it up to stick her nose in it again. “I would never step on it.”  
  
He smiles.  
  
Rey rests her head for a moment on his bicep, sniffing at the flower and thinking, _see, Ben? A celebration of affection._ _  
_  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Note: Ben's only defensive about the Paige Hogsmeade trip because SURPRISE I headcanon that Paige Tico is gay and came out to Ben in confidence.  
> Ben just doesn't want to risk even accidentally outing her <3)
> 
> (Note2: They're thirteen and sixteen here, so this is more akin to sibling-like fluff than shippy, but Rey is getting there. <3)

**Author's Note:**

> I refer to this key literally every time I sit down to write in this AU, so I figure you might like to have it, too:
> 
> Year 1 - Rey (Slyth) , Finn (Gryff) , Rose (Raven)  
> Year 4 - Ben (Slyth) , Poe (Slyth) , Hux (Raven)  
> Year 5 - Jannah (Huff) , Paige (Raven)  
> Year 7 - Phasma (Gryff)
> 
> Headmaster: Leia (Raven)  
> Head of Slyth/DATDA: Ashoka Tano  
> Head of Gryff/Divination: Maz Kanata  
> Head of Huff/Potions/Deputy Headmaster: Amilyn Holdo  
> Head of Raven/Charms: Luke Skywalker  
> Flying Instructor: Han Solo (Squib)  
> Groundskeeper: Chewie (Squib)


End file.
